Waters Corporation has invited the University of Copenhagen’s Forensic Chemistry Laboratory to join its Waters Centers of Innovation Program. The laboratory, headed by Kristian Linnet, provides essential drug analysis services to law enforcement and medical examiners who are investigating suicides, suspicious deaths caused by drug overdoses or poisonings, and drug-related crimes. Test results obtained on samples collected at a crime scene or from autopsies – blood, urine, tissue, saliva and hair – are crucial in solving crimes and determining the causes of accidental or deliberate death.

“We expect a fruitful collaboration on developing new forensic methods based on mass spectrometry which is an exciting, rapidly developing field,” said Niels Morling, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Petur Weihe Dalsgaard and his colleagues in the Forensic Chemistry Laboratory are experts in the development of new analytical methods based on mass spectrometry. “We couldn’t be more pleased to have the University of Copenhagen and Dr. Dalsgaard participate in our program,” said Eric Fotheringham, director of the Waters Centers of Innovation Program. “Due to popular television series like Making a Murderer and CSI, forensic science is very much in the public eye today. It’s a fascinating science and one that skilled scientists like Petur and his team bring to crime scene investigations every day.”

“The illegal drug trade imposes tremendous costs on society. Lives are ruined and the financial cost to society is enormous. We see the effects every day,” Dalsgaard said. “Our mission is to quickly provide law enforcement with the best available expertise, along with accurate and unassailable test results that answer some very tough questions.”

For his work, Dalsgaard employs the Waters ACQUITY UltraPerformance LC combined with Xevo quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometers to measure as many as 3000 individual compounds in a single analysis. These include drug compounds from a number of categories including amphetamines, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, cocaine, methadone and opiates.